Archive for January, 2011

Introduction

The MILESTONE 2 has a single mission – to reclaim the top spot in Android messengers for Motorola. It has the pedigree and the personality, and with the right upgrades, it seems a lock to become the next all-in-one messenger of choice.

Who can blame Motorola? They liked it at the top of the Android food chain and want to relive the good times. Less in a mood to experiment, they know exactly where they’re going and the MILESTONE 2 might well be the phone to get them there.

Motorola MILESTONE 2 official photos

The MILESTONE 2 has the right measure of metal on the outside and beefed up internals – both hardware and software. There are a few omissions too but not too close to being deal breakers. Here they all are, in a summarized form.

Key features

• Quad-band GSM and dual-band 3G with HSDPA and HSUPA support
• 3.7″ 16M-color capacitive touchscreen with WVGA (480x 854 pixels) resolution
• Scratch-resistant Gorilla glass
• One of the slimmest QWERTY side sliders
• TI OMAP3630 1GHz CPU, PowerVR SGX530 graphics accelerator; 512MB of RAM
• Android OS v2.2; MOTOBLUR UI 1.5 with SNS integration
• Web browser with Adobe Flash 10.1 support
• 5 MP autofocus camera with dual-LED flash; face detection, geo-tagging
• 720p HD video recording @ 30fps
• Wi-Fi b/g/n; Wi-Fi hotspot functionality; DLNA
• GPS with A-GPS; Digital compass
• 8GB storage; microSD slot with 8GB card preinstalled
• Accelerometer and proximity sensor, in-pocket detection with auto lock
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v2.1
• Smart and voice dialing
• Office document editor
• Active noise cancellation with a dedicated mic
• DivX/XviD video support

Main disadvantages

• The internal 8GB of storage is for apps only
• Side sliding mechanism is not spring-assisted
• DivX and XviD playback has its issues
• Non hot-swappable microSD card slot
• No FM radio

There’s little missing on the Motorola MILESTONE 2 spec sheet. In actual fact, many of the phone features seem to have a special added quality – Gorilla Glass for the display, 720p video for the 5MP camera, Wi-Fi hotspot for the fast 3G, DLNA for the Wi-Fi connectivity, Flash for the web browser and so on.

Still, the main focus of the MILESTONE 2 is text-based communication – from the humble SMS, through email, to Facebook, Twitter and MySpace messaging there’s little that this messenger droid won’t do.

The Universal inbox is the tool to handle all this. It doesn’t really matter where each message is coming from – they all end up in the same place with a handy reply button to send back a reply on the corresponding network.

Motorola MILESTONE 2 live shots

We’ll rummage through the box for starters and look at the Motorola MILESTONE 2 from all sides with a due inspection of the screen and keyboard. We’ll look at the rest of the hardware and the software too, but first things first.

Introduction

The Samsung Galaxy 551 is something that should have happened a long time ago. This is not to say that the form factor was out of favor with Samsung. But it took a slew of CDMA messengers to finally see a QWERTY side-slider to land in Europe.

Android debuted on a full QWERTY phone, but messengers were never meant to be the dominant species. The Galaxy 551 is pragmatic enough to accept the fact and live with it. Samsung itself knows better than expect the market to embrace more QWERTY messengers the skill and size of the Motorola Milestone or the HTC Desire Z.

Samsung Galaxy 551 official photos

The Galaxy 551 does not look forward to making a big splash, It’s part of a broader effort of giving the Galaxy lineup some depth in the midrange. With Froyo and all-round connectivity the Samsung Galaxy 551 makes perfect sense in the segment of affordable smart messengers.

Key features

• Slide-out full QWERTY keyboard
• Quad-band GSM and dual-band 3G support, 7.2 Mbps HSDPA support
• 3.2″ 16M-color TFT capacitive touchscreen of WQVGA (240 x 400 pixel) resolution
• Great QWERTY keyboard
• Android OS v2.2 with TouchWiz launcher
• 667MHz processor
• 3.15 MP autofocus camera, QVGA video recording at 15fps
• Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n
• GPS with A-GPS connectivity
• 160 MB internal storage, microSD slot
• Accelerometer and proximity sensor
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• Stereo FM radio with RDS
• Smart dialing
• Access to Android Market and Samsung Apps repository

Main disadvantages

• Glossy plastic is a smudge magnet and scratch-prone
• No dedicated camera key
• No Adobe Flash support
• No live wallpaper support
• No secondary video-call camera
• No DivX/XviD video support out of the box
• No document viewer

The Galaxy 551 does well to stay out of the way of the heavyweight Droid messengers. But some of the omissions on its spec sheet are surprising. Given the QWERTY keyboard, a document editor would’ve made sense – but the phone actually lacks a document viewer to begin with. Even Samsung’s traditionally solid codec support has been hit by cost-cutting. The bottom line obviously is that Froyo, Wi-Fi and a QWERTY keyboard is more than enough for the money you spend on the Galaxy 551.

Samsung Galaxy 551 at ours

But the Samsung Galaxy 551 comes with a clear purpose – to boost the messaging capabilities in the Android mid-range. It’s an affordable smartphone facing lax competition – sounds like the stuff that makes the sales meter tick.

It’s no surprise that the BlackBerry Bold 9780 is the next logical evolutionary step, rather than a complete makeover that will propel it into the same league as the iPhone and Android. RIM has a loyal core of customers whose bond with the brand goes beyond the obvious business benefits. And devices like the Bold 9780 are certainly part of that bond.

From a geek’s perspective, a new generation of gadgets should emerge to a new generation of users. Radical, rebellious, with no sense of history and no respect for authorities. In the world of business, every new generation of gadgets has to make generations of users feel at home.

BlackBerry Bold 9780 press photos

There’s no moral dilemma for BlackBerry in this. They know trying to introduce new features and UI tweaks with each new generation involves substantial risk for some of the changes to backfire. But they haven’t given up on the Torch and the Storm, have they? Though it’s obviously much easier to stick to a tested recipe and only add stuff that’s been proved to work.

Key features:

• Enhanced email and data security via BlackBerry services
• 2.44″ 65K-color TFT landscape display with a resolution of 480 x 360 pixels
• Hardware four-row full QWERTY keyboard
• Quad-band GSM support and tri-band 3G with HSDPA
• Wi-Fi connectivity
• GPS receiver and BlackBerry maps preloaded
• 5 megapixel autofocus camera, LED flash
• 624 MHz CPU, 512 MB RAM
• BlackBerry OS v6
• Touch-sensitive trackpad navigation
• Hot-swappable microSD card slot (up to 16GB)
• DivX and XviD video support
• Decent web browser
• Office document editor
• 3.5 mm audio jack
• Smart dialing
• Compact body and solid build quality

Main disadvantages:

• BlackBerry Internet Service account is a must to enjoy all phone features
• Outdated and unintuitive camera interface
• No FM radio
• No video-call camera
• No built-in accelerometer

The BlackBerry Bold 9780 upgrades the Bold 9700 by a 5 megapixel shooter and the new 6th version of the BlackBerry OS. It doesn’t sound much and when you consider that the 9700 was already updated to BlackBerrry OS 6 there is even less to choose between the two phones.

BlackBerry Bold 9780 all over

So, will the new Bold 9780 reveal some nice surprises that are invisible to a casual scan of the spec sheet or will it be a mere footnote to the original Bold 9700?